Title:  Wealth of Experience

Author: Chris Christian

Publisher: Shekinah Media House, Surulere, Lagos

Year: 2016

Pages: 84

Reviewer: Henry Akubuiro

No man can be greater than his experiences, and God depends on experiences to introduce and sustain men in the path of destiny, says Chris Christian, the author of Wealth of Experience. What’s more, we need to go through life to be part of it.

No matter the number of books you have read and your number of contacts, Christian’s book makes us aware that there are things only experiences can teach, for the way of success is made in tested path. One indubitable fact he wants us to take home at the end of the day is that experiences keep record of how we live and all we achieved through such life.

Some of the author’s references are derived from biblical verses, but he stamps his authority on the book with inspired thoughts typical of his writings. In this way, you get a feeling you are reading the work of an intellectual schooled societal dynamics.

According to the author, sometimes, God depends on what happened to us to teach us what we are meant to know, “There are always unique experiences for unique people. It is possible to predict how far we can go in life through our personal experience,” he writes on the second page of the book.

Christian acknowledges that he made numerous mistakes in life because of the limited knowledge he possessed at a point in time. “This is why I chose to write many books so that the younger generation can be blessed from the painful experience I have had” (p.3). It is practical experience that makes men appreciate grey hair, he says.

In Christendom, we learn that the difference between a seasoned believer and others is his experience. Many of us gnash teeth when things are going wrong and deny God. Unknown to us, some of these ordeals are sanctioned by God “because of what He must make out of us”. Some experiences can be ugly and frustrating, but they go a long way in putting us in shape.

Also, one can forge his destiny through one’s experience. Writing in the second chapter on this topic, the author enlightens minds on the imperative of experience in helping men to interpret and arrest their future. Every great story, he pens, is told in great experience.

An aspect of this chapter dwells on the practical life of a eunuch.  One himself, Christian avers that there are special assignments God can only accomplish through eunuchs because of their consecrated and devotion. This book teaches us that those who are made eunuch by God have more grace to function in their vow of celibacy.

Experience gives men understanding, we are taught in the third chapter. This is because there are certain things we need to go through be who we are or access certain revelations. Surely, the crown of testimonies men wear is made in their testimonies, the book says.

The author, still in this chapter, redirects us to our families to dig deep into our backgrounds. This is borne out of the fact that certain lineage experiences repeat themselves. One example he cites is that of Abraham and his barren wife Sarah, who went on to bear Isaac who was to marry a barren wife Rebecca, who later gave back to Jacob, who, also, married a barren wife, Rachael. Christian tells us that “nothing happens for nothing”.

Wealth of Experience is a book that equally sheds light on how experience enlightens the eyes of men’s understanding. The import of this verges on the point that there is so much we can’t know until experience enlightens the eyes of our understanding. The eyes of a circumcised heart, he says, see beyond the ordinary. For experienced men, this book assures us there is no blindness.

The author also examines the power of contact in Wealth of Experience.  Nobody remains the same after a tangible contact, for contact, he says, imparts people and influences their destinies. Also, destinies can be established or mired through contact.

“There are so much God can’t accomplish in our lives until we make certain contacts,” he asserts. While some contacts come to you, the book adds that there are some contacts you must humbly. For God stores rich blessings in rich contacts, the kind of people you are ordained to meet is determined by the kind of destiny you have.

It is important, too, to learn by experience. Hence, Wealth of Experience hints on the need to identify with your teacher by paying adequate attention to all we are meant to learn. We must strive to battle of ignorance, it adds, nay there is need also to learn from the pain of mistakes, for failing is part of rising: the way to success is made in tested paths.

Remember that experience makes true witness, echoes the author, and there is glory of a broken life. God, we are told, produces and stores glory in pain. Wealth of Experience, written by an author inspired by a weird millennium teeming with rich experiences, beckons on you to take relish its repository of wisdom.

By HENRY AKUBUIRO

A publication celebrating accomplished Igbo sons and daughters, Pillars of Igboland, is set to make a debut this Christmas season, published by Enuma Okoli, a veteran journalist.

The 60-page magazine contains interviews, profiles of past and present heroes, articles on challenges of Igboland and deconstructing Igboland, as well as Igbo leaders’ scorecards and the chronicles of breakthroughs recorded in southeast Nigeria.

In its editorial, the publisher said the conceptualisation of the magazine was predicated on the need to project, advocate and also create a platform for the showcasing of the achievements of the Igbo nation, which has been one of the tripods Nigeria rested.

Pillars of Igboland also stands for community development that hopes to encourage the Igbo to participate in the rural development of their communities. The magazine also hopes to encourage the concept of and philosophy of ‘Think Home’ or ‘Reconnecting with your Roots’.

There is more to the publication. Okoli writes: “The magazine hopes to positively and uncritically relay the outstanding achievements of the Igbo both within and outside Igboland.

“The magazine also espouses the theme of a ‘Pillar’ as one who has either impacted his community positively or one, who has held a prominent or worthy office in Nigeria, or a non Igbo whose activity has positively helped the Igbo race.”

Some of the distinguished Igbos and Nigerian featured in this edition are drawn from different walks of life: clergy, academia, politics commerce, royalty, and what not. They include Archbishop Anikwena, Professor Uche Azikiwe, Alvan Ikoku, Sir Loius Odumegwu Ojukwu, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief Achike Udenwa, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, and Prof. Berth Nnaji.

The list also includes Chief Gregory Ibe, Chibuike Amaechi, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Peter Obi, Dr. Ike Ekweremmadu, Chief Mbazuluike Amaechi, Prof. Francis Igboji Idike, Dame Virgy Etiaba, Obiora Chukwuka (Innoson), Aliko Dangote (a non-Igbo), among others.

In an interview with Zik’s wife, Prof Uche Azikiwe recounted how romantic her husband was: “Zik was a romantic husband. You know he was a poet; he wrote many poems about me. You can imagine Zik of Africa writing poems about me, a twenty-six year-old [then].  Zik was very caring. He never joked with his family. He had time for his family.”

Tracing the travails of Igboland in Nigeria, former Imo State governor, Chief Achike Udenwa, a Biafran veteran, said in an interview with the magazine: “In the 1st Republic, there was a fight for the control of the Federal Governement, but that fight was not so bitter because Nigerian was more autonomous.

“The Igbo rose in all directions: in commerce, academics, politics, civil service and in all segments of the economy. The Igbo rose to the pinnacle in Nigeria. This created a lot of jealousy and envy. I remember when the war started, Zik said something, ‘Perhaps, besides the Jews no other linguistic in the world has suffered more persecution than the Igbo have suffered in Nigeria’. This tells us that the jealousy didn’t start today, and that was part of the cause of the civil war.”

This exciting magazine, informed the Editor-in-Chief, Enuma Okoli, during a visit to The Sun corporate office in Lagos, would be unveiled to the public before this Christmas.

By Olamide Babatunde

It is worthy to celebrate people with remarkable achievements in the society while they are alive rather than give them post-humus celebrations or awards. Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA) Arthouse Forum, in collaboration with National Troupe of Nigeria (NTN), recently examined the influence of Nobel Laureate winner, Prof Wole Soyinka’s classic on Nigerian and African dramatic writings and theatre scholarship in the past four decades.

The theme of the discuss was “40 Years of Death & The King’s Horseman”,  which took recently place at the Cinema Hall 1 and 2, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.

In his address of welcome, Secretary General of CORA, Toyin Akinosho, said the event was a celebration of one of iconic text of the African dramaturgy, stating that the discussions to examine the influence of the classic on Nigerian and African dramatic writings and theatre scholarship.

Notable theatre scholars and practitioners, who had, variously, engaged the text in teaching and performance, spoke on the theme as it related to them. The discussion was moderated by Ben Tomoloju, a dramatist, theatre director and critic, who had acted and directed the play in the past.

Other discussants included Dr Tunji Azeez, lecturer at Lagos State University (LASU), who previously directed the play; Segun Adefila, theatre director and choreographer with an experimental dance and mimesis-based version of the play; Vincent Sina Ayodele, a theatre designer, who had designed the play for production at various times; Temi Halim, culture activist, who had worked on producing an epic version of the play; and Francis Owuchie, theatre artist, who had participated in the play.

The moderator, who announced that this year marked the forty years of the play and thirty years celebration of the Nobel Prize, said the play “centres on life and it marvels me”, adding, “It is the story of the Alaafin of Oyo, who reigned for thirty years, and his passing on to the ancestral world was trapped as he needs a horse to go through the area.”

First to comment was Dr Azeez, who said, the play brought about a revolution in the writing of African drama: “The play brings a theory propounded by Prof Soyinka, and it is a world view where everything is one. The past, present and future are one, and there is a continuum, because the past becomes the future. Most times when directors want to direct a play, they see it as a conflict between the West and Africa.

“The beginning of the play is a clear idea of what an African tragedy is, and Soyinka is the only African who has propounded a theory by using his theory into a play. This is one of the best plays of Soyinka, and the reader has to be patient enough to read and enjoy the play.”

Vincent Sina Ayodele had this to say: “The play is a tragedy befalling one man, and affects the whole community. Another discussant, Temi Halim, observed that he encountered the play at an early age: “Whenever, I watch television, as a play starts, I translate it into Yoruba language, and am able to get all the philosophies of foreign language. It doesn’t take anything from Nigerians if the play is not a tragedy.”

For Segun Adefila: “At the beginning of the play, Soyinka was abstract; but, as I grew older, I began to understand his writings.

Africa is independent but not actually independent just like Britain or America. There is a continuous circle of who the Africans are and it cannot be broken because this is evident in Soyinka’s works.”

Oba Gbenga Shonuga added his voice by saying: “The discussions are simulating, and I enjoyed it. This shows how brilliant the theatre world is. I am so happy that the youths present in the discussion will understand the play, but some of them will not also understand it. I relate to Soyinka’s works more as a person and as a writer because his works are unique.”

By HENRY AKUBUIRO

The epitaph in front of the family home of the late virtuoso writer reads: Here Lies the Literary Icon of this Generation, An Ambassador of Peace (A Man without Guile), Captain Elechi Amadi (rtd), 1934-2016).  Who else but a man of sterling portraiture could precipitate rivers of joy far beyond his Aluu home base?

For the first time in the history of Rivers State, a seven-day state burial was organised in honour of a deceased citizen of the state, courtesy of the state governor, Nyesom Wike. In scope, the state burial took the shape of a literary festival, eclipsing tears and dirges of heartbroken mourners.

Isiburu and The Great Pond mount the state

The weeklong activities heralding Amadi’s burial was kick-started dramatically at the Obi Wali Centre, Port Harcourt, on the evening of Monday, November 28, 2016. Amadi’s play, Isiburu, and a stage adaptation of his novel, The Great Pond, were enacted by a star-studded cast.
It was the first assignment of the State Burial Committee put together by the Rivers State Government and chaired by Hon. Frank Owhor, with Sir David Briggs as the secretary.  Pastor Paulinus Nzerem, who headed the committee’s media and publicity unit, guided proceedings.

Isiburu, Amadi’s first published play, tells the story of the famous wrestling champion of Ikwerreland, Isiburu, who wishes to remain undefeated till the magical age of seventy. The cast was led by Nollywood actor, Francis Duru, who played the Isiburu role, and Imo Edward, who played the role of Agbarakwe. The stage dramatisation was attended by traditional dances and wrestling matches with props built to reflect pre-modern Ikwerre vista.

The second performance of the day, an adaptation of The Great Pond, went off like a vortex.  The plot of the performance echoes the effects of war as two villages, Chiolu and Aliakoro, battle over fishing rights to Wagaba Pond.

The state adaptation had two narrators, (Dieprey Omoku Precious and Charles Ezeanachi), with Emmanuel Linus and Orru Yomi playing the roles of Eze Diala and Eze Okehi, among others dramatis personae. Adapted by Imo Edward and produced by Emilia Agbaru, the performance, rendered with vim and vigour, kept everybody on the edge of their seat while it lasted.

The Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Ipalibo Harry-Banigo, who represented Governor Nyesom Wike during The Festival of Plays, declared the one-week activities open. Though Amadi trained as mathematician and physicist, the writer, she said, during his lifetime, affected the lives of many people, producing books read in Nigerian and beyond.

“Many have graduated from universities for their first degree programmes, masters and PhD studying his works. His footprints in the sands of time are too numerous to be mentioned. He was a great man, a true son of Rivers State who brought accolades to the state,” she added.
Presentation of Amadi’s biography, arts exhibition and book fair

The Civic Centre, Port Harcourt, was the venue for the presentation of Amadi’s biography entitled The Quintessential Giant written by Obinna Wonodi, Uzo Nwammara and Priye Iyalla-Amadi. Simultaneously, a book fair and art exhibition of Amadi’s portraits, pictures, collections of artworks and cover illustrations of some of his book cover, took place at the venue.

The state deputy governor, who stood in for the state governor for the second time, expressed delight to be part of the celebration of a man of integrity, hard work and intellect. In part, the state government’s participation, she informed, was a way of encouraging the younger ones to imbibe the principles which stood out the iconic writer. “We hope that those looking up will aspire to be like him,” she said.

She hoped, also, that the message contained in the biography would reach out to many people not present on the sacrificial life led by Amadi. She lamented the disappearance of history in Nigerian school curriculum and the advent of social media which had affected learning about their past.

Uzo Nwammara, Chairman of ANA Rivers and one of the authors who wrote the book, said the idea of his biography originated few years ago when he and Obinna Wonodi, hinted the late writer on their intention to begin the book project, which he consented to but was stalled along the line before they eventually completed it.

Hon. Owhor, Chairman of the Burial Committee, wondered why Amadi didn’t write an autobiography himself. He added afterwards: “It had to be in keeping with his character, a man who didn’t want himself to tell who he is. He was an embodiment of humility and self-effacing.”

While the morning of Wednesday November 30 was dedicated to Literary Day, the evening featured Service of Songs/ Night of Tributes. Members of the Asso
ciation of Nigerian Author, Rivers State Chapter, threw their weight behind their former chairman, spicing the day with readings and dramatic enactments at the Civic Centre. Present on the occasion was the octogenarian poet, Gabriel Okara.
Literary colloquium

Obi Wali Cultural Centre was a cynosure of all eyes on Thursday as the funeral ceremonies entered Day 4 with a colloquium (academic presentations by scholars). The keynote speech by Professor of Comparative Literature, Professor Chidi Maduka, was on “Elechi Amadi: The Great Minstrel and Towncrier”.

Professor Maduka was affirmative in declaring Amadi a great minstrel and towncrier “essentially because of his gallant efforts to defend the integrity of the African traditional values encoded in the social, economic, cultural and political institutions viciously disparaged by the colonialists as barbaric.”

The late writer, he said, was firmly rooted in Ikwerre culture and minstrelsy, hence the intensity of his cultural nationalism which forced him to drop his European name “Emmanuel” just like many other Africans with a similar temperament of cultural self-pride.

Professor Maduka spoke eloquently of him thus: “He was a lover of intellectual discussions.  Widely read, he was an engaging conversationalist who revelled at discussing issues related to the Arts, phenomenology of creativity, youth restiveness in the country, criticism of literature, community festivals, African cultural identity, education, integrity, social values, equity and social justice, and respect for human dignity.  He gracefully balanced his liberal humanism with a penchant for rugged individualism during discussions, often making him to appear convivial with interlocutors.  No impartial observer would have missed the point that he was a very humble, cheerful, self-fulfilledand profusely humorous person whose life seemed to have been forged in the furnace of
his love for literature and the arts.

“He was imbued to the core with the creative rhythms emanating from the traditional African society and generated by the movements from the footsteps of dancers and wrestlers, sounds from the metallic and wooden gongs of musicians, and lines and figures from the works of painters and carvers.  Thus, he was a novelist, a playwright, a short story writer, an essayist, a practitioner of science fiction and even a poet whose use of words vibrated with the rhythms characteristic of the art forms from the traditional African society.

“The diction of his works resonates with poise, clarity and simplicity.  His canonicity rests on the craftsmanship in his prose fiction, a feat that makes him an icon of enchanting realism in African literature.  This stylistic phenomenon is a felicitous domestication of a leading European literary movement known as Realism which blossomed in 19th Century.

“Amadi innovatively Africanised it by deftly grafting surrealism into it, thereby giving it an enchanting touch characteristic of the mythic undercurrent of the interrelated art forms of drama, poetry, narrative, dance, music and painting embedded in African literary performance.  The real plays on the surreal through the narrator’s dispassionate manipulation of the tone, thereby making the text to produce the effect of enchanting realism on the reader.  The trilogy, The Concubine, The Great Ponds and The Slave endear the reader to the world of mysticism dominated by fate encapsulated in them.  Estrangement equally achieves the same effect by making war a sort of an inscrutable force that shatters the lives of the victims caught in the web.”

A former minister, Alagbo Graham Douglas, who was a close friend of the departed writer, paid encomiums on him, too. Though he came from a science background, he was impressed by the presentation by the keynote speaker as it opened his eyes to the diverse possibilities replete in Amadi’s oeuvre. Students who distinguished themselves in quiz, mathematics and physics competitions were rewarded by the Burial Committee.

Ikwerre, Aluu stand still for Amadi

On Friday, December 2, activities shifted to Cabinet Chambers of Government House, Port Harcourt, for a mock exco meeting (Amadi was a two-time commissioner in the state). Ogbakor Ikwerre Convention Wordwide, later in the day, was to receive Amadi’s body at the Obiri Ikwerre Hall.

The President General Ogbakor Ikwerre Cultural Association, Augustine Onyeozus, who led a mock council meeting in honour of the deceased (the Ochioha Ikwerre the 10th), extolled the virtues of the writer, acknowledged that he was outstanding in everything he did.

“He developed himself into a man of many parts during his lifetime, a soldier, a writer, a community leader, a technocrat. To him, his achievement was no big deal. He appeared simple. He was never proud. Ikwerre people won’t forget this man who achieved so much for his people,” he said.

Chief Gideon Omeodo, Ochioha Ikwere the 8th, also spoke glowingly of the writer, describing him as a big Iroko and defender of the Ikwerre ethnic nationality, and his death a loss to humanity. But he counselled them to “weep not, for the lord giveth; the lord has taken.”

Another prominent Ikwerre man, Emeritus Professor Otonto Nduka, in an emotion laden voice, remarked that the Ikwerre people were saddened by the loss of Amadi. Placing a wrapper on the casket of the late writer, a former leader of the association, he prayed him to go in peace. Riding in convoy, the casket was taken to Mbodo, Aluu, his family home, for lying-in-state.

ANA visits Amadi’s family

As a prelude to ANA Night of Tributes, the association, led by Mallam Denja Abdullahi, paid courtesy visits to Amadi’s wives and children. Some of the high profile members of the association present included Odia Ofeimun, Minima Minesoma, Uzo Nwamara and Humphrey Ogu (ANA River). Priye Iyalla-Amadi was the first to receive the writers.

Addressing her, Mallam Abdullahi said her husband left a legacy, enjoining the family members to keep his dream and legacy alive. Speaking in the same vein, Odia Ofeimun said her husband left behind a complete celebration of life through his writing.

He also eulogised him as a “man who we will take to everywhere; a man who joined the army and helped train the military and went to change the society,” adding, “Among the writers we have in ANA, Elechi Amadi has a special place. He gave us a map with which we can interrogate the lives we are living. He was always present in ANA meetings. He, Saro-Wiwa and Cyprian Ekwensi make us look like an association because of their presence.”

However, the poet was dismayed that Amadi’s groove, which used to be a distinctive hallmark of his compound, had been erased in the build up to his burial. Describing it as an important part of creativity, he urged the family to restore the groove in keeping with Amadi’s love for nature. He encouraged all to read and enjoy his stories.

In addition to that, Mallam Denja Abdulahi said should the association was making plans to immortalise his name. ANA General Secretary, Ofonime Inyang,    rendered a moving dirge, “We Salute You”. A post-humus award bestowed on Amadi at the recent ANA convention was subsequently presented to his wife by the association.

Lending his voice to the tributes, Minima Misesoma, a University of Port Harcourt scholar-writer, said of the deceased scribbler: “Amadi is everything for everybody. He is not dead; he is still alive. He is immortal.”

In response Priye Iyalla-Amadi thanked the association for immortalising him. For her, the death was a bitter pill to take: “No moment of joy; no moment of celebration. Thank you for immotalising him. He lives on.”

Colourful burial

Amadi was led to rest on Saturday, December 3 at his family home in Mbodo, Aluu, after a colourful funeral mass celebrated by Bishop Blessing Enyinda, the bishop of Ikwerre Diocess, Anglican Communion. Recalling the contributions of the late writer the church, he said there were Ikwerre bible and hymn book in the church courtesy of Amadi and a committee he led.

The preacher condemned widespread corruption in the country, especially among those in authorities, to the detriment of the masses. He lionised Amadi as an embodiment of selflessness and contentment. He added: “In Amadi, we saw a man with humble disposition, a simple and an unmatchable man of peace with himself and others around him. Let us learn not to be selfish; let’s eat and not let others eat.”

Governor Nyesom Wike, in his address, commended the Burial Committee for doing a good job and not just giving the late write a state burial but a national burial. “Elechi Amadi”, he said, “was not just an Ikwerre man or Rivers man but a Nigerian”, for his contributions in the country were well acknowledged in the universities, the army and wider society.

“The man called Elechi Amadi was not an ordinary person. If you are a child of Elechi Amadi, you are respected and supposed to do things worthy of his name,” he said, adding, “Elechi Amadi never wanted to enrich himself but to serve humanity.” He appealed to his family to live in peace.

As a way of immortalising him, he renamed the Port Harcourt Polytechnic after Amadi. Also, he promised to complete the abandoned Faculty of Arts building named after him within two months. His gestures were greeted with ovations.

Late Amadi was a captain in the Nigerian Army. The soldiers’ parade was preceded with gunshots fired in unison and a salute of reverence before lowering his body to the grave. His family members completed the burial rites at the graveside. The burial ceremonies climaxed on Sunday December 4 with a thanksgiving service at the Anglican Church, Aluu.

Some of Amadi’s colleagues present at the burial were JP Clark, Odia Ofeimun, Wale Okediran, Denja Abdulahi, Nengi Ilagha, Anaele Ihuoma, Minima Minesoma, to mention a few.

In a chat with The Sun Literary, the Chairman of the State Burial Committee, Frank Owhor, recalled that Amadi was a man of many parts who served the society distinctively: “He was a traditional man, academic, selfless, honest, fearless –somebody Rivers State will always miss.”

The Secretary of the Burial Committee, Sir David Briggs, added: Elechi Amadi, though born in Aluu, ascended and transcended beyond Aluu, and more important, taught humanity, the life of simplicity, humility and ability to give back to society both in terms of knowledge and experience. That’s what I want to learn.”

It is a given that many more would surely be on queue to learn the Amadi mojo of success.

Dr. Chris Anyokwu, a lecturer in the Department of English, University of Lagos, is a playwright, poet and short story writer.  His works include the plays, A Parade of Madmen, Homecoming, Ufuoma, Termites, Bloodlines and other Plays, Beyond the Wall and other Plays; the short story collection, OI’Soja and other Stories; and the poetry volume, Naked Truth. Damiete Braide interviewed him in Lagos recently on his writings, and the literary scholar takes us on a voyage on his works as a writer, his assessment of contemporary Nigerian literary criticism, use of Pidgin English in his works, the advantages and disadvantages of self publishing, among others. 

You have been in the university system for a long time; can you tell us what your assessment is on the state of Nigerian contemporary criticism?

The state of the Nigerian contemporary criticism, compared to what it used to be is poor, just as creativity itself. I will say our old writers are better that the new writers, and the same thing obtains with criticism. The question is: who are the critics that we have today? Do we still have the likes of Dan Izevbaye, Emmanuel Obiechina, Benedict Ibitokun, Oyin Ogunba, Theo Vincent, Wole Soyinka, the late Chinua Achebe, among others. We don’t have people like them anymore, rather, we have people who are intellectual jobbers. They scribble things down just to gain promotions in the universities. For them to really learn their trade and sit down to do a lot of research before they can say that they are writing something that will last the distance, which is very difficult. This is not to condemn everybody; of course, we might have some few voices still trying to hold brief for their own generation and trying to write but I do not think that we can really put them at par with their predecessors.

With the shift from the Achebian stream of writers to new breed of younger ones, do you think the latter is up to par in the literary space? 

The taste of the budding is in the eating. It is there for everybody to see. Take any of the late Chinua Achebe’s works and put is side-by-side with the new generation of writers, you will notice the difference. Take Professor Wole Soyinka’s plays and productions and the ones that we have now, the difference is clear. If you take books written in the 1950s like Things Fall Apart and books written recently, you would realise that books written by the first or second generation of writers are miles ahead of those being written now in terms of quality, aesthetics or finesse.

Some writers do say they are just retelling a story as it were. How did you come to write Bloodline and other Plays?

In this age of crass materialism, you will realise that some people will take undue advantage of those who are not wealthy to look after their own family which can lead to some negative things. Some people will call it ‘accidental discharge’ and the child is given birth to and you will realise that the child is not the biological father. If you read Desire under the Elms by Eugene O’neill, an American playwright, in that novel, his son impregnates his wife but the man celebrates the birth of the child as if the child is his. Although, some of his neighbours know that the child in question belongs to his son, which he had from another man which was not his. So you can see that, it is as old as time, this idea of unfaithfulness on women.

I am not gender biased but it is a sensitive partisanship. The idea is, you have good women and bad men or vice versa. I wrote the play because of the prevalence of unfaithfulness and the problem of impotency or infertility which I dramatised and create awareness to the problem. Bloodline and Other Stories are tributes to an ailing nation and a dramatisation of the steps needed for the nation’s recovery. What led you to write happenings in the nation?

Bloodlines and Other Plays was dedicated to Nigeria at 100. It is a political allergy on the country, where you look at a family where a man marries three wives and he is not the biological father of all the children. If you take a look at Nigeria as well, you realise that: Who are the productive forces of this nation? They are the unsung members of the informal sector, that is, the common people whose efforts are never mentioned in history books.

Why the use of Pidgin English in your works?

Pidgin English of course is a leveler. You will realise that it is a language spoken by the educated and the uneducated in the society. The language is no respecter of any social class. For the dramatic effect, it is quite humorous to use when you speak the language and those listening to you are entertained. The use of Pidgin English has its own drama or poetry peculiar to it, and that is why I make use of it. I also use it as an index of class differentiation and as a marker of ideological commitment.

How is it that you weave a realistic setting and capture the ambivalence on the dynamics of a vibrant rural community? 

I am a Nigerian who grew up in my village in Edo State. Writing about rural folks comes to me naturally. I observed both the elderly and young people in the way and manner they talk or behave. For me, if you really want to talk about authentic African work, it is important that you situate it with an African environment. To an extent, you want to say that what really shows a high degree of authenticity when it comes to Africanism is the rural environment. I write about them with so much pride and I don’t think, it is something to be ashamed of.

In what ways would you explain how the environment influences your writings?

Every writer is a product of his/her political milieu. They are influenced by what happens everyday around them. When you look at the post colonial environment defined by inequality, deprivation, discrimination, problems of bigotry, prejudice, ethnicity, tribalism, political corruption, poverty, infrastructural decay, lack of opportunities for the teeming youths, these are things that engage me. I get frustrated at a personal level, and, in order to get out of this angst in me, I put them into writing which makes writing a therapy for me. While writing, I get a measure of release of peace in me and I also feel that am adding my voice to the chorus of people who are agitating for a better life in Nigeria.

As a writer and literary scholar, when do you find time to write?

Everything is about time management. During the day, I am in school to teach students or supervise their works, conduct research and, when am at home, I look after my family. The best time for me to write is usually in the night. I wake up early in the morning to write when the environment is quiet. If there is no power supply, I put on my generating set to continue my writing. Sometimes, I also write during the day with my children clambering all over me and with so much noise around, it stimulates my creativity which makes me to actually write in a quiet or noisy environment.

In a world overtaken and driven by signs and symbols of technological advancement, what is the role of literature in this era of social media?

Literature is man’s greatest achievement through time. In spite of the march towards civilisation, the importance of literature cannot be diminished. Social media is part of the scientific mentality or method; it is another frontier for the promotion of literature. When you talk about social media, you are talking about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, etc. What you put there also constitutes literature, but the point is: is it now popular culture or high arts? That, of course, brings to the fore the question of the different dimensions of literature. You have popular culture or high arts. Social media is very important to literature and it helps literature to reach a wider audience.

As far as self publishing goes, what is your resolve?

Self publishing is both good and bad. It is good in the sense that there might not be established publishing houses that might want to publish your work if you are not a big name in the industry because they are in it to make profit. You can write a masterpiece and because you don’t have a big name, your masterpiece might just perish with you. In that regards, if you are able to show your work to people who can acknowledge that this is a masterpiece, then you can raise sufficient money to give it to a decent publishing firm to publish your work.

You should not stay in your house, use your laptop to write a story, then take it to Shomolu for printing then. I don’t think that should be done. No matter what, you really need to give it to a publishing firm that has the structure in place for good publishing of works.

Are you of the opinion that the future of the younger generation has been stolen by members of the older generation, which made you to write Stolen Future?

Stolen Future is about a young graduate who is unable to get a job after years of searching. He runs into a prostitute who tells him she went into prostitution due to her inability of getting a job after graduation. She is disappointed by some men who promised to give her a job. After sleeping with them, they didn’t give her the job. The young man in question lives with his uncle, who is a renowned politician and top government official in his boys quarters. His uncle tells him, “We are not ready to give the younger ones jobs, because they will mess it up”. At the end of the day, the young man and lady become close, and the lady promises to leave her job as a prostitute because she has saved a lot of money for both of them to operate a business together.

The play examines the faith of the younger generation with regards to job opportunities and possibilities for social mobility that forward movement is made difficult by members of the older generation who refuse to quit the stage when the ovation is loudest, saying that experience counts but they are not ready to give opportunity to younger ones coming today. They should be given the opportunity to work, when they make mistakes on the job, they will learn and make amends. The popular saying that young people are the leaders of tomorrow, some people will tell you that right from the 1960s, they have been hearing that phrase, but those who have been ruling this country since then; they keep recycling themselves till date. The future of the younger generation has been stolen by members of the older generation.

How did you feel writing your second book, A Parade of Madmen, which you wrote when you were in tertiary institution?

I wrote the book when I was in my second year in the university, which is all about war. That was during the early 1990s when there were a lot of wars in Africa such as the Liberian war. I tried to look at the social state in Africa viz-a-viz the septre and the scourge of internecine and fracticidal conflicts and leading to massive loss of lives and properties. Those who are in power may argue at a higher level through diplomacy. When diplomacy fails, they mobilise people who know nothing about the war to go and die in the battle field. These wars lead to social dislocation and all kinds of problems for society leading to massive and humanitarian disasters, refugees’ problems, among others. The play takes a look at these crises pleading for dialogue rather than trying to resolve differences through the barrel of the gun.

After the publication of your plays and fiction, why did it take you a long time to write your first collection of poems, Naked Truth. Is it that you had to struggle with coming up with the poems? 

I believe that poetry has a higher degree of discipline. Recently, I wrote an article in one of the papers entitled “Nigerian Poetry and the Loss/Careless Generation,” I tried to explain that some people rush into poetry thinking that they just string words together, classify it and call it poetry; that is not poetry. For one to write a good poem, the individual must be a little bit of a philosopher and historian in you. Tt requires a higher degree of discipline, emotional intelligence and deep thoughts must be involved. That is why, I have taken time, trying to hold my art, trying to wet my craft, trying to improve before I was able to publish my collection of poems two years ago.

I am tempted again to inquire about the play Ufuoma; what prompted you to write Ufuoma, and how does it reflect the things going on in the society? 

Ufuoma takes a satirical phemerous look at the Ivory Tower in Nigeria. The issue of politics there, the relationship between lecturers and students, and the whole idea of the glorification of vulgarity and mediocrity in the running of tertiary institutions in the country and, by extension, our educational sector. Ufuoma tries to diagnose and point the way forward to the solutions of the myriads of problems bedeviling the educational sector in the country.

BOOK REVIEW

Title of Book:             The Millionaire’s Curriculum

Author:                       Aham Njoku

Publisher:                  Lisbon Golden Stream Ltd

Pages:                         152

Reviewer:                  Steve Aliba

Price:                          Not stated

The Millionaire’s Curriculum written by Aham Njoku is the type of book that can practically change a person’s life for good.  The book is made up of thirteen exciting chapters that will keep you captivated from the beginning to the end.  Why did the author write a book totally devoted to the study of money, a controversial subject which people all over the world struggle to understand? In his own introduction, he offered an insight. He said, “Since I became an adult of about 18 years, I have always wondered why a grandfather would be rich, his son too will be rich and his grandson will also be rich. On the converse, I have also wondered why in another family a son will be poor, his father will be poor and his grandfather also will be poor. Do riches, wealth or poverty run in different families?”

The answer to this poser is one of the reasons that motivated the curious author to embark on a research spanning several years to write this book. Another reason why he wrote this book can be gleaned from the introduction too. He said, “I decided to write this book to teach people simple things they can do to become rich”. He also gave a further reason why he wrote the book when he said in the introduction, “In particular I am worried that some children of rich people who are busy (and have no time to teach their children about how money works) may end up being poor”.

Interestingly the first chapter is titled, “How money works”. Here he deals with basic issues like defining money, talking about earnings, savings, cutting down on expenses (budgeting), investing your money, re-investing your money, owning the house you live in, protecting your investments and even philanthropy.

In chapter Two he explains key money words like cash flow, assets and liability. In chapter Three, he discusses “Man Made impediments to wealth creation”. This include procrastination, gambling mind set, mental and physical laziness, lack of focus, prioritization, inordinate ambition, showing off, consumption mind set, dependency syndrome, friends, associates and the role of habit in becoming rich or poor.  In chapter Four, he discusses three types of income. These are earned income, portfolio income and passive income. In chapter Five he discusses the concept of cash flow quadrant which he said was first articulated by Robert Kiyosaki, a wealth creation mastermind. These are being employed or self employed on one hand and on the other hand being a business owner or an investor. He argues convincingly that those in the later category are more likely to become rich than those in the former category.

In chapter Six, he discusses four things that make people poor. These are tax, inflation, debt and retirement. In chapter Seven, he gives several examples of assets. They are property, business, treasury bills, fixed deposit, bonds, commercial papers, intellectual property, commodities, stocks and shares.  In chapter Eight, he poses a question “Do you have a money plan, goal or target”? He talks about the rat race, the fast track and the potential exit strategy of a person who aspires to be rich. In chapter Nine, he discusses in detail what he calls a “Retirement Blue Print”. Many people who want to retire rich, happy and healthy are going to find this chapter compelling. In chapter Ten he writes about integrity (brand) and advertizing. In Chapter Eleven, he discusses desire, planning, action, discipline, determination, persistence as the route to riches and wealth. In chapter Twelve titled, “Nuggets of Money Intelligence”, he quotes copiously from several authors and wealthy people around the world including Lee Iaacoca the former president of Ford Motors and later Chrysler Motors. Finally in chapter Thirteen which he wrote as a bonus to the reader he gave forty hot tips for investment in stocks and shares.

There is no doubt that Aham Njoku is a master story teller of narratives that are unforgettable. On procrastination he told a local Igbo folktale of how the slow tortoise beat the fast antelope to a race and became the king of the animal kingdom. He also told four stories about the dangers of borrowing money. For example in chapter six which you can never forget in your life, there is a story about the Senatorial candidate who committed suicide. The second is the man who borrowed money to import fruit drinks. The third is the man who lost his job after borrowing money to buy a house and the forth is the landlord who became a tenant. All these happened in Lagos! The book is also laced with humour. He told the narrative of a person who built houses in his stomach with food instead of building houses in real life.

One thing that is commendable about the book is that each topic is brief and straight to the point. Another good thing is that the author gives credit to other authors when he is quoting them or discussing the money concepts articulated by them. Equally, he uses both local and international examples to drive home his point. For example he talked about the Aba Women’s Riot of 1929 over tax against the British Colonial government as well as the effect of Hunicane Mathew on rich and poor people that ravaged Florida, a state in United States of America in 2016. On inflation he gave international and local examples with Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Nigeria. To say that the author is a prolific writer and a voracious reader may be an understatement as his versatility and global outlook is self-evident. His bibliography which lists 21 books on money intelligence and motivation which he has read several times over himself and which he recommends to the reader is indeed enriching.

May I criticize? The fantastic embossed cover of the book which is artistic and catchy depicts wealth. However it appears to be too bright. Perhaps the colour which is yellow could have been toned down. But it is obvious that the objective was to draw the attention of potential reader to the wonderful book on a shelf.  There are also many good stories buried in the body of the book. In a subsequent edition, the author may wish to title them like he did for Abraham Lincoln and Henry Ford.

But who is Aham Njoku? I do not think he needs much introduction to the Nigerian public but I still need to fulfill all righteousness. In doing this I will rely on the comment at the back of the book about the author, “with over 120 television appearances since 1997 and over 155 published articles in virtually all Nigerian Newspapers since 1987 when he was in the University, including his days as a Columnist with the Guardian Newspaper, Aham Njoku is publicly known as a constitutional Lawyer, human rights activist and political strategist. He attended Government College Umuahia, University of Benin and Nigerian Law School”. Let me add that he is the author of the pioneering book, “History of the Legal Profession in Nigeria” published in 2005 just like he has pioneered writing a book on money in Nigeria.

Finally, in commending the book to members of the reading public I would have to identify myself fully with the views of the author that parents should introduce this book or other books on money intelligence to their children as early as possible so that they can learn how money works and therefore escape from poverty into riches. In conclusion, according to Dr. Austin Nweze of the Lagos Business School (LBS) who wrote a blurb comment on the back cover of the book”, This book couldn’t have been written at a better time than now when Nigeria and indeed the world is facing serious financial challenges. Individual incomes have been eroded and investment appetite slowed down. This book is a re-awakener for the reader to start investing again”.

Aliba is a Lagos based Lawyer.

Pray for Uyo

I left the house that morning
Dressed in my Sunday best
Makeup on flek
Maybe I would finally land the husband

I heard politicians were coming
Maybe I’d get a selfie with a few
Facebook must hear biko
And I catwalked out. “Uyo, how much,” I asked

I sat at the middle
The Governor just finished giving his speech
Praise and worship session

“This girl get voice o,” I said
And I danced with joy

No one saw it coming
The last thing I heard was the cry of the baby
The last thing I felt was a liquid pouring out of my stomach
The last thing I saw was the baby’s head off her shoulder
Then silence

I left the auditorium
I saw a lot of other people too
We were all dressed in white
Smiling and following another brightly shining man with wings
We were happy

But I looked back
I saw the mother who left her baby to go use the convenience wailing
I saw the lady shouting for her newly wedded husband
I saw families searching for their loved ones
I saw the government running to save lives
I saw my friends weeping and placing RIP on my wall full of my slay
I saw my pastor crying
I couldn’t cry
I felt no pain

Don’t pray for me
I am resting in peace
God came to take me
I found my husband man in white

Pray for Uyo
The tragedy is much
Families need comfort
People need reassurance in Jesus
Believers need grace to have faith
The Pastors need your support

Pray for Uyo
That affliction may not rise the second time
That the devil will not give people the base to bow
That the unbelievers won’t have new comedy
That the levites would not have to answer “where is your God”

Pray for Uyo
The same way you pray for Paris

This is no 9/11
10/12 is heavier

Don’t pray for me at my grave
I am not there
I am resting in peace.

Unprepared
O house of the Lord
You have failed in your duties
You have shut your doors against Gentiles
And patted Pharisees so proudly on the back

You have killed more than you have saved
Ever failing to bring the message of salvation to all
All you preach is prosperity and prophecy
Whatever gets you a large offering that Sunday

You have turned the Communion of brothers and sisters
To a Communion of gossipers and back biters
You have the light of the world
Yet you pull a curtain over it
You have the salt for the earth’s meal
Yet you keep it all for gain

You have abused your gifts
You have killed talents
You have buried souls
And burned hearts

When I walk into you
All I see is a courtroom with a pulpit
With the cross of Jesus plastered up above
And wonderful sound equipments
None which can listen to that heart in the middle row
Whispering and begging for salvation

O church
You have named the name of Christ
But all I see you full are people who practice religion
No one wants to be Christ like
We are just really trying to be Christ copy while removing whatever we feel will inconvenience us

Oh how have we judged
How have we condemned
We were meant to be a solace to dying and lost souls
All we have done
Is write their names in our book of candidates to hell.

Wole Oguntola is a poet with two intermittent awards, as well a short story writer, a satirist and an activist, whose poems have been published home and abroad. He is a member of ANA, Ondo State Chapter.

Distances 

Distances, the track is far we all know

from the back view of the earth borderline

The illuminating ray at earth crust

follows shadows to the earth cross road

Metres and miles impair life

Improbable journey imperils men

Lives in the manacle of oracles

Earth, distance the track is far

The made in the makers catacomb

since the first suns the genesis of crisis

The cataclysm that emboldens the earth

sprouts out cactus of beasts cacophony

Dilemma 

As fugitives we’ve come this way

from where others had left

Lingered to dispatch

through the plains to the pavement

where sunrise is never hindered

There, a Portal….

Held us in her arms

To wait never to leave

In the dilemma plains

There our fury rose

And broke in to our fragments

Of the earth elements…

There we’ve stood so long

Where returning was a great scenario

And forwarding formed a volcano.

Sadism

Lone glory here

As many eclipsed everywhere

And cow in the lethal night

The glory gouged out of sight

By multiple hands, of fright Mother!

In your sharp pronouncement.

The scare

A laden memory

Holds with inference of its beginning

The scare, truly

A pain in the vein

Of the sticky shackles of anguish

The to the body and soul

In the lack of night-hood

Fused feet lingered to loose

The body and soul of man

The mighty storm held to run

In the plight of debt, behold the scene

The scare, truly

The separate satires of the dichotomy

of the story-teller is kept to recall

The scare, truly

A choice of chain held to rest

For all hope seemed to have lost

The scare. Truly

A laden memory to ponder

Holds with inference of its beginning.

Title: Without Money and Without Price

Author: Dennis Odife

Publisher: Alkestis Books Limited, Lagos

Year: 2016

Pages: 408

Reviewer:  Henry Akubuiro

Success makes many men make a beaten track to your doorstep, but it takes a Spartan courage to thread along tortuous paths that lead to success itself. Not until you hear it from the horse’s mouth, conjecture is just a given about the length and breadth of this bitter-sweet walk across time and space.

The path trodden by late doyen of merchant banking and stocking in Nigeria, Dennis O. Odife, was laborious at a point. It became fast and furious at another point. In the end, he set a pace. Written by Chief Odife himself, the autobiography, Without Money and Without Price, chronicles his life and times, leaving us with many things to reflect on his mercurial rise to the top.

In his foreword to the book, Bukar Usman, a close associate of the deceased stock exchange guru, extols his virtues as “…a brilliant scholar, a competent fellow, and a man who spoke out of personal convictions” (p.xii).  And in forty chapters and four appendixes, the author leads the reader into the recesses of a life inhabited by a diligent mind and an exemplar of success who overcame many obstacles.

The first chapter “Better than Gold” foreshadows spectacular recollections. In a judgment delivered in his favour over a libel case with a leading Nigerian newspaper, Justice Adamu Bello on June 12, 2008 in Court 3 of the Abuja High Court, Maitama, echoed: “A good name is better than gold”. It was a judgment that Odife describes in the book as “a befitting conclusion to my professional career in the Nigerian Capital Market”.

Given his endearing personality and a man of accomplishments, the red cap chiefs of Nkwelle Ezunaka, where he came from, decided to install him as the traditional ruler of the community in 2002 following the death of their traditional ruler, which he turned down. Odife explains why: “…I was already immortality privileged; I had been a great agent of social change in my own lifetime. What need, therefore, did I have to become an Igwe in a small town in Eastern Nigeria?” (p.28).

Odife’s childhood recollections, which form the basis of the third chapter, recalls his early days in Jos with his parents – “My… memory of Jos was a sort of paradise in which all I had to do was play, eat and be given a good bath in a tub…” (p.30). He also chronicles the scary incident at River Niger, where, excited by the prospect of a first-time pontoon ride, he let go the grip of his dad, and found himself unaccompanied at the other end of Onitsha. Briefly lost in Onitsha, he was eventually found by his father.

The author, in the fourth chapter, recalls his growing up in Benin, Agbor, Abeokuta and Lagos, while following his father about as a prison warder as he was being transferred. At Edo College, the author remembers how it was greeted by many highs. At King’s College, Lagos, where he transited to thereafter, his debating prowess and dramatic roles made him more visible within Lagos. The fun continued for young Odife at the University of Lagos where he continued his academic pursuit.

The outbreak of the Nigerian civil war in 1967 momentarily truncated his university education as he hurried back to the Eastern Region, where, mistaken for a “Nigerian”, that is, a non-Biafran, he was rounded up to be lynched as a spy until he was rescued by the intervention of his in-law, Mr. Anene. He was to join a couple of Biafran paramilitary groups during the war, and was dispatched occasionally to some risky, clandestine operations.

Without Money and Without Price details, also, how Odife returned to Lagos at the end of the civil war. He writes: “My return to Lagos was very eventful. As I got to depart, I did not have a kobo on me”. Worse still, his mother had only four pennies left for the upkeep of the family, and only spared two pennies, with which he left home. He managed to get to Lagos with help from here and there, ending up as a refugee at Unilag.

Columbia University, New York, served as a glorious avenue for further studies. Courtesy of a University of Lagos scholarship, he travelled with his wife, Stella, to the US, where he was admitted to study Marketing and International Business. How did he become a banker? The answer is contained in the twelfth chapter. His stint at Icon Limited, a Lagos merchant bank, was to define his career path after he left his lecturing job at Unilag upon his completion of MBA at Columbia.

Without Money and Without Price recounts Odife’s entry to the stock exchange business where he became an economic czar, bringing intellectual activism to the Nigerian capital market. Some of the speeches presented at different fora within this period (1976-1996) were published in this book. Odife’s illustrious resume included serving as a consultant to the World Bank/IFC, setting agenda for the Nigerian economy through his company, Centre Point Bank, among others.

The most significant lows of his life came with the travails of Centre Point Bank and his unsavoury experience in party politics. Ultimately, Without Money and Price presents us with a rare insight into the making an astute banker, stockbroker and academic. Produced in hard paper back with few errors, it is an autobiography that easily stands out on a shelf.

Title:  When the Chips are Down

Author: Ezenwanka Macdonald Chijioke

Year: 2O15

Pages: 264

Publisher: Njigod Printing Press

Reviewer: Ezugwu Okike

Expo 1977 by Chukwuemeka Ike was the first major screaming satire to take Nigerian education system to the cleaners. Expo… ended with an indictment of every facet of the Nigerian society. Parents, teachers, students and even the government all had a hand in the pie. Expo… told a tale of a society peopled with offenders.

But the novel got outpaced as time marched. Writers are historians, and Ike being just one, recorded the deeds prevalent in his time. Weeping publications in the class of Expo 77 did little to correct these damaging ills. Patriots will be saddened to know that these evils assaulting our education system have undergone astronomical increase since the publication of Expo… and other writings targeted at healing our sick education system. Their sophistication has advanced. The ills got bloated and have acquired sturdier root.

Ezenwaka Macdonald Chijjoke explores this more than most writers before him. He did not just pick up his cane to flog a dead horse. When the Chips are Down crafted off by Macdonald was thorough and pitiless as it slashed through the complex anatomy of decay in our institutions of learning. It is penetrating, encyclopedic and can frankly take pride in leaving no stone unturned

It is an unsparing story of university life set in the fictitious country of Ngari. It portrays everyone as victim and a good number as perpetrators of the dark immoralities bedeviling our institutions of learning. The good student who came into the university with the earnest intention of seeking academic light is turned against the wild.

He is left without options in the face of a brutal jungle. If he stands aloof, he soon finds out that the fence is a precarious place to sit on. If he becomes a member of a fraternity, his predicament is doubled as he hunts and gets hunted. He now needs in his arsenal weapons of both attack and defense. If he strikes neutral he is consistently hunted and preyed upon. He stands between a pitiless devil and an unfeeling blue sea. His tale is that of a turbulent existence.

Another helpless victim is the beautiful female student. Incontinent lecturers hover around her with vesture’s greed. It is not worth a beetle if she has something up stairs. She must play by the dirty rule of a dirty game which chiefly consist in throwing open her legs. Rivals clash over her as she helplessly stands as a piece of bone flung into the midst of desperate dogs. She is dazed and befuddled.

University administration is hijacked by a syndicate which percolates and involves the university’s top echelon. This syndicate kidnaps, hold hostages and keeps the academic community in terror. The air is fear-suffused.

The cloud gathers and culminates in a rain of crises with confraternities conflicting and shooting on sight; the hunted firing back and security agents contributing their own inferno to the cross fire. An academic tale that should have ended in inventions, breakthroughs and colorful titles is capped with injuries, incarcerations and death.

Richard is our chief character whose story provides us with a window into these dark crimes. Richard fought his way through the ranks of the dreadful leopards. He later fled out with scars from a starry battle to instruct us on what our education system has become.

When this book left the printing machine, I was privileged to be possessed of a copy. Reading through it, one thing stood out for me. The narration has an insider’s authority. The complexity of crimes as revealed by the author may make an outsider in a sane clime construe it in the light of a crime fiction. But we shall credit this to an uncommon gift of imagination and long- spanning period of eagle-eyed study of the society

In this era that we pretend to fight corruption, When the Chips are Down is a story of the revolution. The school system is the fountain irrigating the rest of the society. If the school system is contaminated then the society is way too close in harm’s way.

With the current bill before the senate seeking to increase the gravity of sexual harassment of female students by those who teach them, the spirit of hopefulness is abroad. But there is a sad side even to this. The sad side is that the Nigerian problem was not initially caused by the paucity or non-availability of laws. It is caused by the abject want of will for enforcement. It is our uneasy hope this bill when it matures into law wouldn’t just be pursuing its way into our curious collection of lame and redundant laws. We need to protect and preserve the dignity of all Ezenwaka’s Angels in our midst. I recommend this book for everybody.

Ezeugwu Emmanuel Okike is a social commentator and literary enthusiast.

By Onaolatomirin Falade

In today’s world, it is not uncommon to see people with diverse talents finding alternative means of expression due to the belief that their own talent isn’t enough to present to the world. However, when a man is diligent in what he does, he will stand before kings and not mere men, as the Bible tells us. Talent combined with diligence presents excellence, and excellence is exactly what was presented at Femi Luther Abegunde and Elwoma Luther- Abegunde’s The Witness.

The auditorium of Cornerstone Youth Church, Surulere, Lagos, was the venue on Sunday December, 11, 2016, where Femi Luther-Abegunde pastors a fast growing congregation of youths, as Femi Luther-Abegunde, fondly called FLA, and his wife, Elwoma Luther-Abegunde, a top Nigerian gospel artiste presented to the world, The Witness.

The show comprised of the launching of three books, The Laws of Work, Tools for the Journey and Street Sense for Church Boys, all written by Femi Luther-Abegunde, and rendition of songs by Elwoma Luther-Abegunde from Elwoma’s Diary.

The event took off at 4 pm with a Red Carpet segment where those who witnessed the 2015 edition of The Witness, spoke about the last edition and their expectations for this one. The Red Carpet was expertly handled by Ewoma Oyegwa of the Cool FM fame.

The comedian extraordinaire and compere per excellence was on hand to thrill those in attendance with hearty jokes and witty connotations. After the opening prayer and address, a story of pictures detailing the journey of the Luther-Abegundes was broadcast on a projector screen; from their maiden individual achievements to their latest exploits as a couple.

After the picture story, which was well received, Elwoma took the stage with a powerful musical ministration, which was a gift to music lovers in attendance. Aside the fact that Elwoma currently ranks among the list of top female gospel artistes of the day, her powerful voice washed over the auditorium in a refreshing wave confirming why she is a voice to reckon with.

A review of one of the three books being launched by Femi Luther-Abegunde titled The Laws of Work presented by Olufemi Ibiyemi balanced the previously relaxed atmosphere of the programme. In the review, the audience was given a first taste of what the book is all about. Olufemi Ibiyemi stated that one of man’s major responsibilities on earth was to create a balance.

FLA’s second book, Tools for the Journey, was reviewed by Tolu Afonja, while the third and most favoured book, Street Sense for Church Boys, was reviewed by Samuel Musah. In the review of Street Sense for Church Boys, the reviewer explained that the book points out the error in the mentality of some church folks who allow opportunities slip by them due to “over-spiritualisation” of things and issues.

The three reviews were broken into parts by more musical ministrations by Elwoma and her team whose performance got the audience on their feet in dance. In a chat with FLA, he stated that the witness was a platform for expression for him and his wife. He informed that the platform was also meant to express their God-given talent: his gift of writing and his wife’s musical talent. He informed that the inspiration for The Witness came early 2015 when they both were planning for a book launch and the name which means proof provider was inspired by the need to tell the world that being married does not put an end to one’s talent.

His wife, Elwoma Luther-Abegunde, a pearl among music lovers, in an interview, stated that she and her husband converse a lot, usually about giving back to the society and adding value. She expressed that their synergy was her own inspiration for The Witness.

In all, The Witness was an evening of inspiration and motivation with soul lifting music from Elwoma and cranial art from FLA. Femi and Elwoma Luther-Abegunde is one couple who spend their talent lavishly for the betterment of mankind.

By Damiete Braide

Sister Act the Musical, the world-renowned theatrical piece, earlier scheduled for debut in Nigeria in December, will now be staged in Easter. The postponement, according to the producers, Ajibayo Akinkugbe Productions, a sister arm of the recently inaugurated Ajibayo Akinkugbe Foundation, is because of “circumstances beyond our control.”  The Producers however, promised that the shift in date would allow for greater outing during the festive Easter season.

Billed to be about the biggest musical production, starring an all-Nigerian cast in Nigeria, its planned presentation was met with high enthusiasm when it was first announced in February.

The AA Foundation said it took the difficult decision to postpone the production because of issues beyond their control even with the large support and interest from the general public, senior practitioners within Lagos theatre circuit, and interested sponsors.

Head of the Ajibayo Akinkugbe Productions, who is Executive Producer of the Musical, said: “It is with much regret that we announce the postponement of our maiden project Sister Act the Musical.

“We started on this journey some three years ago, and since then, with the support of our collaborative partners, Cape Town’s prestigious Waterfront Theatre School, we have made strong strides and achieve many wins not least the successful Lagos audition held back in February which showcased some of the best and untapped talents in this country.

“Very early on, we were encouraged by the support of another one of our key partners in this project – The MUSON Centre. So, the deferral to next year Easter was both unavoidable and disappointing.  However, this move allows us the additional time to fine-tune the production to an even higher degree. And we remain confident that Nigerian production of Sister Act the Musical will electrify the Nigerian theatre audience and also platform the talents of many of our home-grown artists. We apologise for this delay; therefore, we would like to assure you that the show that next years show will be bigger and better!”

The show was previously scheduled for an 8-day run this December at the popular MUSON centre. Taken from the hugely successful 1992 film comedy of the same title, Sister Act is the story of Delores Van Cartier a former singer who witnesses the murder of her beau and subsequently has to take refuge in convent and disguise as a nun for her protection. The story gathers pace as Delores is told by the mother superior that the church is in need of some much needed funds, which triggers a series of warm, comedic and inspiring drama wrapped in some of the most memorable and soul stirring song and dance.

Girl, 12, manifests incredible passion for writing  

By Gabriel Dike

You can call her Chimamanda Adichie in the making or the next kid on the block as regards creative writing in the country. You certainly would be right. At 12, Ijeoma Nwaogu, a JSS 2 pupil of Dominican College, Mafoloku, Lagos, is no doubt one of Nigerians youngest author.

Just recently in Lagos, Ijeoma unveiled her second book, Adventure of Emily and during the launch of the book, authors, teachers, classmates, school administrator, educationists and even her parents showered encomiums on her zeal to write books at her age, hoping they she would do the nation proud like others authors.

Ijeoma, born in Florida, USA but from Aboh- Mbaise in Imo State, was the star attraction at her book launch. She is from a family of authors. Her mum, Dr. MaryJoan Nwaogu, has written over 9 books for primary and secondary school and over 12 manuscripts; while her dad, Dr. Marcellinus Nwaogu, has published one book. Also, her younger brother has two manuscripts, while her elder brother has one manuscript.

Ijeoma’s mum, Dr. (Mrs.) MaryJoan Nwaogu said, with her second published book, she was heading to greater height, and already has five manuscripts waiting for perfection, stating: “She has always been a story teller. When you tell her stories, she will tell you her own version of the same stories.’’

Dr. Nwaogu, a physiologist, disclosed that Ijoema attended SOS Isolo Primary School, Isolo, Lagos, and edited her first book at the age of eight, noting” In her primary school, at age four or five, the pupils are expected to know how to write and read.’’

He insisted Ijeoma took after her mum who has over 11 published books and about 12 manuscripts waiting for publication, and recalled that she liked asking questions before she started school, and that her inspiration could come anytime.

Her dad, Dr. Marcellinus Nwaogu, revealed that what inspired Ijeoma was more of curiosity, stressing,” As a child, she enjoys bedtime stories. She will not go to bed without somebody telling her folk stories. This is not her first book.

“Lost Girls is published before the Chibok girls were kidnapped, and I asked her If she had the premonition on the kidnap of the Chibok girls. The book was published in 2012 when she was in primary three at eight. She started writing at the age of five.

“She must have tapped the inspiration from her mother who is also a writer. Her other two siblings are writers. The youngest, Uchenna, eight years wanted to publish but his computer crashed and he couldn’t retrieve the manuscript. You are right, that is what is beginning to look like. That my family is a family of writers,’’ Dr. Nwaogu disclosed.

The Principal of Thames Valley College, Sagamu, Mrs. Ogechi Epke, who chaired the book launch, said she was happy, because youngster had started writing books, stating: “A 21^st Century child is focused on creative things.’’

Reviewer of the book, an author and Chief Executive Officer of Travel Next Door, Mr. Pelu Awofeso, said: ‘’For some at her age to have written a book left a lasting impression. Ijeoma has improved from her first book.  There is so much in her mind, she seems to be in a hurry to pass across certain information to the youth.’’

Speaking with The Sun Literary Review, Ijeoma disclosed that it took her about a year to write the book: “I did the bulk of writing at home. My mum helped to edit and publish into book. After doing my assignments and reading, I would start writing the book by typing in the computer. I had sleepless night while writing the book.”

By Sam Felix

Each month, our mother used to leave us twice to visit our sick father in Ukanafun. She would hold us together under her arms, caress our heads, and then tell us to be our brother’s keeper, love one another and live in peace till she would return.

Before leaving, she used to procure for us the following items: a bundle of white candles, a packet of matches, two litres of kerosene, a bottle of olive oil, a rosary for each of us and a big Jerusalem Bible.Then we would be marooned in the palpable quietness of our 1980’s model of thatched house that went dark even in the afternoon and cold on sunny days. At night, we would pack ourselves at a corner, in our mother’s bedroom, sing a few songs and pray the rosary, till we would doze on each other’s shoulders, with our ears wide open to hear a cock crew announcing a new day.

During a visit in November, my mother stayed at Ukanafun longer than usual – almost a month, and we began to run short of food stuff. So, one Saturday morning, we took a cutlass, a hoe and a rubber basin, to bring some cassava and potatoes from my mother’s farm at EnenEbom, and we spent the whole day wandering in the farm, tiptoeing to identify which one was my mother’s farm or not, and we came back with nothing. Then hunger came severely,and we began to file on the street – in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, to our Aunty Mbeke’s house, to eat. On another day, a woman came to us and told us that our father’s banana had ripened and was being eaten by wild bats. So, we set out again for the harvest, again, returned without the banana, as we were confused of which of the many ripened banana trees was our father’s. While the hunger lasted, we really wished we had taken it seriously, when our father used to tell us the need for a person to know what really belongs to him or her. We wished we could return to those days, at least one of them, when my father used to tell us what he owned and those he did not. And as we sat out one day, to recall the memories of the days of our father, this is what we remembered:

In those days, when parents were given the respect they deserved from their children, and when children were taught to do the first thing first, we were born in southern Nigeria, to a couple who were so committed to their family-making. I was ten, the eldest child named Amanam. Asi followed me immediately and was a girl, eight, tall and very beautiful. Sam was the last born, six, fairand long-legged. The time was 1980, and my parents knew nothing about formal education and the Western lifestyle. All that bothered them was that something must go on the table, at the right time; that all that belonged to us – including our kinsmen, where all known about and taken care of; that weeds did not survive in our farms for more than three days. Although we enjoyed reputation as the best brains in the famous St. John the Baptist Catholic School, which father Iyirepleaded with my father to register us, my father did not still applaud our intellectual prowess, neither did he, even for once, celebrated our excellent academic performance, and at least, roast a tuber of yam for us, not to talk of kill a fowl. One day, when father Iyire invited him to the father’s house after a Sunday service, and congratulated him on the grounds of our intelligence, my father faked afrantic, fleeting smile that almost tore his mouth.

“You have wonderful gifts from God”, father Iyire told him.

“Thank, father!”My father managed to bow a little when his two hands reached the priest’s. And when the priest had gone inside, my father suddenly handed me his Bible and the liturgical Calendar and then led us away, that it wondered me what would have happened if the priest went in just to bring his sprinkler or, maybe, his wooden crucifix to do us a little blessing.

For my father, you were not intelligent or wise to his own taste, if you could not boldly say how many plots of land he presently owned, how many were leased out and to whom, and which ones were due for cultivation in a given planting season. Those were the ideas that shaped my father’s understanding of who an intelligent person was, and nothing more pretentious. No wonder, then, that he showed that level of non-challance toward our academic knowledge.According to him, the only knowledge of a man which could be of benefit both to the man and his up-coming generation, is his knowledge of what and who belong to him – property, kinsmen – including his forefathers who had died many years ago, why they died and where they were laid to rest. `Other than that, a man’s knowledge was very flimsy, and could be blown away even by the lightest evening breeze.

On Saturday mornings, my father used to file us up at the backyard, to clear the wild ndise leaves that formed little canopy around a peer tree, to prevent mosquitoes from breeding under it. He would stand behind us, watching and criticizing our improper ways of holding cutlasses. He had his own matchet – curve-edged and wooden-handled, with which he showed us how to hold a cutlass when cutting grasses and it was different from how to hold it when cutting a bigger stem or when being challenged by an enemy. In the afternoons, he would show us how to repair our thatched roof – when to only patch a leaking mat, or when to change it for a fresh one. Then in the evenings he would seat us down on a bamboo bench, wear his double-lensed spectacles that glimmered like a sun-flashed ocean, and begin to read each of the hand-written agreements, and the receipts that followed all that he had ever owned, including that of the white Raleigh bicycle he said he bought two years before the Nigerian Civil War.

He was as good a record keeper as he was a history teller. I wondered why, out of the many stories that he used to tell us about himself, his late father, and even our country, he never told us the amusing tales of animals – the wiseness of tortoise, the rulership of lions, the smartness of the cat.Or didn’t he know them? Or were they simply unnecessary? When, then, my father wanted us wise, was it not necessary that he tell us the tales of the wiseness of the tortoise so we could be wise? Why did he waste his time telling us about the difficulties of life and how to overcome them? Did he, by implication mean that things were going to be difficult for us his own children?

My father’s tales of life were simply dismissed by the flamboyant fantasies we had about the future. Within us, the ambitions were open and clear. I was going with the self-respect of a future priest. Asi was carrying the pride of a potential medical doctor. Sam was already treated by his peers, with the respect of a future footballer. My father should have said something about our ambition: how to adapt to the loneliness of priesthood, how to make it in the medical school; how to be an outstanding footballer. That way he would have said something, animated us. Would I, when I become a priest, leave my parish or seminary, to judge which of my father’s farm would be due for which planting season? Would Asi, who would be a medical doctor, be leaving her luxuriously built and furnished Mansion in the city, or her highly respected apartment in the hospital to keep watch of our father’s white bicycle? Or is it then, Sam, an international footballer, paid in dollars, Euros and even pounds that would run out of the pitch or abscond from their training camp, in Brazil, for instance, to count the branches of his father’s mango trees?

Five years had gone by, and I was done with my junior seminary. Asi was putting finishing touches to her WAEC exams. Sam was writing his WAEC mock, and father Iyire had travelled to Rome. Things began to change, when my father’s leg fractured from a little falling in the night, and was taken to a herbalist at Ukanafun, where my mother used to visit twice a month.

So our mother came back after two more days. She talked to no one. She even managed to answer our greetings. She sat quietly on the bed, her face swelling, eyes red. She seated Sam on her lap and stared at him with the air of someone who was rather consoling than caring. We needed no Angel to tell us that we had lost our father. And, so we had already melted before our mother finally told us. There was no reason whatsoever, to take our father’s death easily. For what reason?Our truncated ambitions?Our poor knowledge of our father’s property and kinsmen that we had to fall back on as our mainstay of survival? The fact that father Iyire, who would have mentored us, had travelled to Rome? We wished father Iyire were around, to coach me through the senior seminary to become a priest, to put Asi in the University to read Medicine, to introduce Sam to an International Football Club to become a footballer.

Samuel Felix Ekanem is a Nigerian Creative Writer from Akwa Ibom State. Many of his creative works, especially short fiction, have appeared in many National Dailies in Nigeria. He graduated from the Pentecostal Secondary School, and is presently studying Communication and Media Arts at the University of Uyo, Nigeria. E-mail: sa-muelfelix090@gmail.com

The Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o: is regarded as the greatest living African novelist at the moment. His works include novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children’s literature. The founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal, Mũtĩiri, Ngugi, is the author of the classics, Weep not Child, Petals of Blood, A Grain of Wheat, Wizard of the Crow, Ngaahika Ndeenda, to name a few. His awards include Lotus Prize for Literature (1973), Nonino International Prize for Literature (2001), National Book Critics Circle Award (finalist autobiography) for In the House of the Interpreter 2002; Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award for Philosophical Literature (2004) and the Park Kyong-ni Prize (2016). He was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2009. The California-based writer, who was recently in Nigeria for the Ake Arts and Book Festival, spoke to HENRY AKUBUIRO on his writings and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Your novel, Wizard of the Crow, was the first novel you published after twenty-two years in exile. Why did it take you so long to come up with that work?

My previous novel before that was Matigari. It came out in 1976. Wizard of the Crow came out many years after in 2006. Wizard of the Crow took me a long time to write –over six years to conceive the novel and write it in Gikuyu and also have it translated into English. As you can see, it is a big novel, and I don’t want to complain too much.

In 1977, you tried your hands on a work of drama, I Will Marry When I want, where you intended to demystify the theatrical process. Did you actually succeed in this theatrical demystification?

Yeah, very well. It was an incredible experience at Kamiriithu Community Educational Cultural Centre. This was literarily a village, about twenty miles from Nairobi. Before that, there was a debate about the National Theatre, because some of our plays couldn’t be allowed into Kenya National Theatre, which was then dominated by European theatre. So, we started asking ourselves: “What is National Theatre? Is it a building or a people?” The moment we came to the conclusion that the people were the basis of a national theatre or any national institution, our path was very clear –we should go to the village and start from there. So, we went to a village, literally, of small farmers, landless people, people who worked in nearby factories, people who worked in plantain plantations, tea estates, and so on. And all the actors and actresses came from that community.

Of course, we had to use the language they use –Gikuyu. There is no way you are going to a village and you tell them we are having a drama in English –it would be absurd. And that was a learning process for me, because I discovered that they (the people) knew Gikuyu language more than I did, because it was an everyday language for them. So, the moment we used Gikuyu, the elitist division between the educated and the none educated was actually erased in terms of language –you could no longer use English as a way of showing how much you knew the language. That was very important for all of us. Then you could see what everybody could contribute. You could contribute what you heard, and what they heard wasn’t defined by English language.

If you are a carpenter, then you could do carpentry; if you are a singer, then you could sing; if you have an experience in a factory or in a plantation, you take care of that, you can talk about your history, how you see it. It was a very liberating thing for all of us, both the village people and the elite, who came from Nairobi University, and so on. We had to arrange it ourselves. You know the barriers of language and the attitude that came with it.  You really find that what you are going to contribute with the common pool is very powerful. That’s how we kept producing Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want).

The play –the experiment –was so successful that the convoy of cars and buses that came from Nairobi, from university students and high schools from all over the place coming to see what the ordinary person actually could do –was a reversal of our situation. So, it became also a learning process both for the students in the faculty and other people who came, and also for the village, would also say, ‘Wait a minute, so we can produce this kind of work that will worth this kind of attention?’ So, it was a learning process all around.

In A Grain of Wheat, there seems to be gravitation towards Fanonist Marxism. What were the imperatives that made you set sail on the Marxist trail?

I don’t really know what you mean by Marxism. But let me tell you my approach. Let’s start from the basis. You and I were to work on land, and we were to produce what we eat, the clothes we wear –that’s the fact. It has nothing to do with whether Marxism was there or not. When we do that, we don’t do that alone. We do that earlier as a family, so we divide labour even within a family. We did that long before Marxism came. I am trying to subvert the notion. What we are looking at – I will like to call it dialects –consciously seeing how things mutually affect each other. And that’s is very important.

I will put it this way: in my first two novels, The River Between and Weep not Child, the developments of the plot is very linear. But, really, that’s not how development takes place. But also there are other things that impact whatever we do. So, that’s what we are trying to capture in A Grain of Wheat. Did Marxism help me? Yeah, Marx is very important in my life as Fanon is. The discovery of dialectics is very important because he is the one who now begins to see me make me look at how phenomenal is interconnected. That was really the most important thing. I have remained with that as my guiding principle ever since.

Still on A Grain of Wheat, it is being described as the bible of Africa. What do you make of this?

I don’t know whether it is a Bible, but the word for me is “exploration”. A Grain of Wheat, after we had read Fanon and Marx, and other things, made us look at colonialism very differently. Let me put it another way: after independence, many of us noticed there was discordance, something we didn’t know what it was. Fanon directed us there, giving us the vocabulary with which we could look at that situation and begin to understand it…Oh my God, what’s happening? That was very important. So A Grain of Wheat was able to show and dramatise in a way, not only the struggle of the ordinary people but, in a sense, also of their betrayal after independence.

You have had a hackney of bad experiences with the Kenyan establishment, leading to your being imprisoned and hunted for a long time. What do you consider the role of the African writer? Don’t you think you overstepped the bounds by being over critical of the establishment?

I am not consciously critical of the establishments. I just look at the connection between phenomenons. Let’s look at it this way: I care and you care whether somebody goes hungry or not, whether somebody goes without clothes or not. You care about that. So, if I come to, say, here in Abeokuta, think of people, whether they are going hungry or without home, and I ask myself why. Right? So, some people may not like it, even when there are some people in mansions and palaces, and others without homes. So, we show the connection between palaces and prisons. When you rights, you admire palaces and even condemn prisons, and you don’t show any connection, they are quite happy and call you a good writer. But, if you show a connection between prison and palaces, then they say you are being subversive.

In an interview with late Nigerian novelist, Elechi Amadi, he told me that the original concept of literature was pure entertainment, but, along the line, African writers began to import social issues into it. Can we say that African writers deviated from the entertainment values of literature to infuse political currents?

Literature belongs to the whole category we call the arts –music, painting, theatre, and all that. And this category which we call the art, area actually very important to the human, because they are products of the human imagination, and imagination is peculiarly human, not animals. Animals don’t have imagination in that sense. Imagination is what actually makes us human; it is what makes us to be able to create things, build houses, and imagine a future and possibilities. So, the arts are a product of imagination. The arts are also what nourish the imagination. So, when you look at it that way you realise how central the arts are to the human. If you want to prove it, look at any community anywhere –African – and go as far back as possible, you will find either paintings on caves of animals before the captures it or singing or dancing. What I am trying to say that literature has never been outside life. It’s part of life even when it is entertainment.   It’s also talking about realities, because you will find somebody laughing very happily and they are starving. But when he works and gets his clothes or food, he is happier. That happiness is a reflection of something else.

For decades, you have been a campaigner of writing in indigenous languages, which has seen you write your works in Gikuyu language and translating into English. It has also been observed that, comparatively, you have recorded little success writing in your mother tongue because of limited audience in Gikuyu compared to English…

Since I published the novel, Petals of Blood, in 1975, all my novels have been in Gikuyu, all my drama scenes have been in Gikuyu, all my poetry have been in Gikuyu. I am a professor of English, theoretical works, and most of them are in English. But creative works as a whole have been consistently in Gikuyu.

Then you translate them to English?

Sometimes I translate into English; sometimes I get somebody else or translate into English, or, if I don’t, somebody else will translate into Dutch or Japanese. So, there is no contradiction whatsoever.

Here, in Africa, majority of our writers don’t write in indigenous languages, because they believe that they have limited audience.

That’s not true. There are many factors that make many African writers write in English. One is just because we find other writers writing in English and you just keep doing it. Some young writers now have been brought up in school, family systems completely disconnected in their indigenous languages. Even, if they want to write In Yoruba language, and they are not rooted in the language, so that is a problem. But you don’t have to give up because of problems. Government needs to change their policies towards African languages.

African governments?

Yeah. We can’t absolve them. They must come up with educational policies that empower African languages. In a nutshell, if you know all the languages in the world, and you don’t know your mother tongue or the language of your culture, that is enslavement. But, if you know your mother tongue and the language of your culture and you then add all the languages of the world, that is, empowerment. The reality in Africa is that we have to choose between empowerment and enslavement. I would rather choose empowerment.  I mean, I write in Gikuyu, but you and I speak in English – I am a professor of English in California.

Did you deliberately make Petals of Blood complicated with its structure?

It is generally how we tell stories to each other. Sometimes we don’t always tell stories in a linear way. How we tell stories is like this: you meet; you tell him where you have just come from; you tell him you reached a certain place and there was a bus accident; you can even interrupt the flow of the conversation and begin to recall a similar accident that happens to you before the person begins to tell you whatever happens. Ordinarily, people don’t tell stories linearly. They feed into each other, but you still come back to the original tale. So, if you listen to how stories unfold among people, they don’t usually unfold in a linear way.

In reaction to the 2016 Nobel Prize awarded to the American rock star, Bob Dylan, Professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate himself, said, at the height of the Nobel controversy, since he had performed songs in some of his drama works, he should also be nominated for the Grammy. What do you think of awarding a Nobel Prize in Literature to a man widely known as a musician? Do you think The Swedish Academy is trying to rewrite the concept of high arts?

I am not a member of the academy. I don’t know what’s going on in their heads. So, I leave that to them. What I care about, for me, personally, is the fact that there are so many people all over the world, including African people, who, as a result of reading my books, think, in their own views, that I am worth the Nobel Prize. So, that’s very touching, because they are saying, if I was giving the Nobel, they would have given to you. That’s very touching. That one, I like.

Probably that’s the better Nobel Prize –the readers’ Nobel…?

(laughs) There is something noble about it –about so many people wishing you get it after reading your books and they say you deserve this prize. So, I don’t know what’s going on in their heads [Swedish Academy].

In Nigeria, for instance, there was so much outrage when the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced. There was this expectation that 2016 was your year and that, since Chinua Achebe didn’t get it before he died, you were naturally the next in line in Africa. What exactly goes on in your mind each time you are being touted by the bookmakers in the UK and elsewhere and you don’t get it?

You know what I want to do? I want to write more in Gikuyu. I have this reaction all the time. I want to write the bet possible novel or play or poem I can write in Gikuyu. A fable of mine has been translated into 55 languages. In my house in California, sometimes, instead of giving material gifts, you can also give the gift of a story. On my birthday, I can say, “Bring me a camera and come and tell me a story”, and I will be happy about that. So, one day, my daughter told me, before my birthday, “I want a story for my birthday”. That night, I came with a story, which was to be called “The Upright Revolution” or “How Humans Came to Walk Upright”.

I remember now, it has been translated to Pidgin English by the Nigerian Naija languej activist, Eriata Oribhabor.

Yes. The fable has also been translated to Igbo, Ibibio, Hausa, in 40 different African languages, 6 European languages, 6 Asian languages, 2 …. That one really encourage me a lot. The reason that encourages you is that the people who made that possible were a young group of Africans who called themselves Pan African Collective (JALADA). To see young people behind this phenomenon –this success of this story in making this translation possible in forty different African languages –is a way of showing a way out in a way. So, I am very happy about that.

Which of your work, from Weep not Child to Wizard of the Crow, do you find reading and reading over?

I don’t really read my book once I finish writing them. When I am writing them, I can read them over and over again. I may be revising them over 20 times. It is like crazy. But once it is finished, especially when it is published, I don’t go back to it. I can go a paragraph her, but I can’t go from cover to cover. It is like going over the same ground you went over twenty or forty times. But I like Wizard of the Crow because those ho read it said they laughed. It is pleasurable to make people laugh when reading your work.

Which is your best work?

Oh! The one I have not yet written (laughs).

Any new work in the offing?

I have got a small epic coming out written in Gikuyu. Most epics talk about how communities came to be. I would like more African writers to developing the epics in their communities, because all communities in Africa have stories of their origins. If you look at the Greek theatre, they use the same tradition to create different plays. They are using the same poll of mythologies. I would like to see the same in Africa. Every community has myths or histories of origins. We have to go back and develop them. I think we can get them into epics.

There has been a departure in African literature, with many new writers delving into diverse subjects like war, lesbianism, and other thematic preoccupations uncommon to your generation, peppered with Pyrothecnics. What do you find intriguing or otherwise of new African writings?

I am very excited, first of all, by the new generation of African writers. You can see that, at the Ake Arts and Book Festival, all the writers came from all over the continent, most of them young women, very confident. It is encouraging to see Lolola Soneyin, who was in control of the festival. I like them being young, but also I would like them to be o the forefront of African language. I know they are challenged, because some of them never learned African language –so I understand that –but, still, I would like to see them on the forefront fighting for African languages.

Buchi Emecheta, a Nigerian literary icon based in Britain, has died aged 72.
Buchi passed on in her sleep on Wednesday morning in London, according to her representatives.
The late author and playwright published more than 20 books, including Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979).
Buchi was a widely-travelled visiting professor and lecturer.
From 1972 to 1979 she was a visiting professor at Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Buchi was a senior resident fellow and visiting professor of English, University of Calabar, Nigeria from 1980-1981.
During her illustrious career, Buchi won the Jock Campbell Award from the New Statesman in 1979, and was on Granta magazine’s 1983 list of “Best of the Young British Novelists”.
In 2005, the British monarchy awarded her with an OBE (Order of the British Empire).

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Barine Saana Ngaage (PhD) is an associate professor in the Department of English and Literary Studies, Faculty of Arts, Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State.

Key to success

Reading is the key of information

which opens the sky

and induces the rain of learning to fall

in all areas of specialization.

It equips the mind with facts

in decision making

for solutions which stamp success

on the sky of possibilities.

It unlocks the world of the internet

like a magnet which

pulls in brain wealth

that runs into tiny rivulets.

It is the road to educational diamond mine

which each mind mines

on the scale of intellectual strength

for purposes of pleasure and livelihood.

It moulds the faculties

like the soil nurtures a grain

until maturity makes knowledge flourish

and lifts society to a mountain top.

It shakes hands with literacy and education

in the network of growth and success

for the growth of the individual and society.

Reading, literacy and education are spices

of literariness cooked with knowledge in the pot of

literary society for the development of society

they are clothes washed with the

detergent of socialisation and learning.

Democracy of fenced walls 

The Democracy of fenced walls

does not mend broken ethics

The Democracy of fenced walls

does not see paupers beyond the walls.

Do ballot papers breed democracy?

What happens when poverty sells a right?

Can you retrieve it when rights

have merged into authority?

Sustainable democracy does

not play drums of jungle justice

Justice does not question

legitimate candidacy

or leads it with a gun into quietude

or buys it off the shed of availability

or threatens to stuff out its light.

Is your democracy in chains?

Or is it a joyous lamb?

The Democracy of class buys good ideas

in the market of change

applies lavish styles for change

but imprisons them behind the line of class.

The Democracy of self

sitting on the luxury of millions of naira

should not abide in the home.

The Democracy of self-preservation

sleeping on golden furniture allocation

should not live at home.

The Democracy of godfatherism

needs no sustenance in the ocean of plenty

where sons eat excess melons.

Justice does not pinch one grain of salt

Nor does it deprive labour its due;

it gives the retired dancer its wages

without withdrawing the hand of sunshine.

Democracy does not steal privilege

and turn it into fortune

nor does it quests for hegemony.

Justice does not pinch one grain of salt

off the bag of the poor masses

nor does it write new praise songs

in the book of greed.

The Democracy of fenced walls

does not mend broken hearts,

The Democracy of self

deflates the wheel of trust.

The Democracy of race or

class is blind to others.

The Democracy of class is blind to the poor.

Pigeonhole of cassava  

I do frog-jump into the creek

Like a log thrown into water

Splashes wet women, screaming

Hooting and rebuking arrest me.

Surprise grips my being

Thunderous voices shake my physique

I look into the mirror of Neene’s face for an answer.

Revelation creeps into my consciousness

After my mind’s flight of confusion

Sudden revelation breaks the ice  –

Tactless cow-like steps.

Women resume their work over pigeonholes

Of cassava littered by the banks.

Blocks of cassava sleep in the basin

Of sand beneath the water

Neene dislodges their coats

They scatter, defenseless, fall and

Faint in a raffia sifter that dances

In cyclic order above water

White flour falls like tiny beads

Into the bag and percolates beneath.

Women pick letters from their pigeonholes

And send them through raffia

Shifters to various destinations;

Rodents kill hunger feasting on remnants

They skip like joyous rams and peep at them.

Divine Mbutoh

Divine Mp Mbutoh is a poet, critic, and gender equality activist from the Northwest of Cameroon who currently lives in Yaounde. He was the second runner-up of the HOFNA Spoken Word Poetry Award, 2016. He writes for Radio Health International (RHI), and Positive Peace Group. His poems have equally featured in a Ghanaian online poetry anthology, I Know My God, published by Abotreh, Ghana, July 2016.

“If you vote against Nigeria…”

Dear Alhaji,

Can you hear these coarse brittle voices?

We are forlorn in this valley like purple

Stripes of the entrails of a rich triangular sandwich,

Our long gone twin, his sharp predatory incisors

Arebecome too sharp for brotherly caresses_

He’s bent to eat us up!

Etpuis quoi?he barks.

Dear brother_

Dear adopted brother,

Tafawaour Uncle, your father_warned us,

But we had glided on with spring legs

Like the stubborn fly on harmattan wings.

We had jujued our battered colonised visages

With a thick mask of pride across the Mungo

How could we tell that our own one…

Partaker of a once shared umbilical will_

Ah! This shrinking mount of Southern flesh!

How could we tell that cultural mutation

Had chocked our twin brothers to mopiness?

How could we tell that Passpartouthad

Churned the sanguine ancestry in them?

Etpuis quoi?he barks

Hear us, even for this one time!

They are giving us strong glasses from

Bordeaux to drink, though we had

Asked for Her Majesty’s royal wine!

Etpuis quoi?he barks

Dear uncle Tafawa,

Now we know the elders are always right!

But if we must die in our brother’s yard,

(For we have made resistance a duty)

Dear uncle Tafawa,

Humbly we chew your words in these waxy

Ears of ours_ different attitude towards life…

But if we must die, will you adopt us again?

Will you open up your door of wisdom while

The wounded adventurous prodigal son

Fallsbeside you, even for one last time?

Will you adopt your lost son one more time?

The Mungo is barricaded from emptying its

Entrails into the Niger_

Hear us before we breathe our last;

We fumble like the spectres of great

Endeley and mighty Foncha,

We can still hear innocent resonance of 01/10.1961,

Skipping &throttling like he-goat pulled to the shrine_

I see the lurks of silks in the forest of Manyu,

We’ve cried our tears to the brim of

The Mungo for two Scores & a Dozen_

Etpuis quoi?he barks

Dear Tafawa,

We came, we saw, and were conquered.

The juju that went downhill has come back with

A broken leg, the wimpy fly is at the mercy of

A nonchalant predatory dragon beetle,

The dotting mallard is before the hunter’s barrel,

The vaulting ambition on the eve of 01/10/1961 is clipped.

Etvousallez faire quoi?he barks.

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Title: Forever there for You

Author: Chioma Nnani

Publisher: The Fearless Storyteller House Emporium

Year: 2016

Pages: 368

Reviewer:  Olamide Babatunde

The author, Chioma Nnani, studied Law at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, though she acquired her early education in Nigeria. Her passion revolves around human rights advocacy. She has now added the feather of an author to her cap with her debut novel, Forever there for You.

At 16, life had just started for Nadine, the central character in Chioma Nnani’s debut novel, Forever there for You. She had everything going on pretty well except her dislike for coffee and fish, which, incorrigibly, always made her want to retch.  She was daddy’s little girl, the only child who wasn’t spared any moment of getting VIP treats. This was so much so until she had blossomed into a young woman who “needed the protection of a man”, as her father teased.

The narrative goes on smoothly, detailing a sparkling friendship that developed, as both Stella and Nadine made an exit to a spot simultaneously. They had the food, drink, and drag and down times as should be for college students. Having had a culture shock earlier, Nadine is quickly able to adjust and adapt to her new world.

London is nothing like Nigeria when it comes to food. She detested coffee, couldn’t understand soup poured out from tins and, worse of all, detested the less spicy dishes that made her miss home. After all, she came from Nigeria where you had the melon soup, Ofe onugbu, with assorted parts of meat rendered to an unforgettable taste that make taste buds thank you later on.

The African delicacies were good. She even made Stella ogle the first time they got a good opportunity. But, as soon as college reality dawned on them, Nadine prioritised; the continental dishes didn’t matter as such as the grades she had come for. She began working without meals and, soon suffered an ulcer.

Gradually, life became fraught with extremities in pursuit, tribalism and religion. The latter led to a drift in her relationship with Raymond, resulting in a new beginning for her newfound passion, leaving her marooned to whips, chains and a bloody rose garden.

After a botched attempt to make her mother understand what her travails were, she put up a brazen front, masking any trace of violence, and other tell-tale signs of her failing union.

By the time she admited she needed help getting away, a major damage had occurred. That was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Our tragic heroine cuts out to be a fighter, and one can’t help but
emit pathos towards her plight forsaking all sense of embarrassment. Nnani makes us see our sisters, mothers, and aunties and loved ones in Nadine. Seeing as a helpless victim who needs respite, something will stir in the reader to run towards a moment where we can stick up for another life while it is still worth it, a much better option that hovering with a guilty conscience.

Nnani, in her tale, doesn’t just introduce the reader to her character; she opens up a world of taste and world destinations, having experienced these places herself. Described elegantly and flirtingly, she guides the reader and, together, they embark on a journey to Venice, Paris, as the romance spills unto the streets from her vivid beautiful descriptions.

While it is known that many women are in abusive relationships, the author delineates the realities, which underscore the beginning and end of an unconditional spousal love –one which gets bloody with every stem of rose.  Our central character did not want to fail at anything much more her marriage.

She typifies the everyday woman who yearns to have an abusive husband turn a new leaf. Speaking for her part, self-preservation comes first on her list, unlike how some think there is something to be gained from Martyrdom.

This absurd message, she says, is recanted in the words like “women should be patient”.

A critical take on the theme of the book is that women need to be taught to place premium on their lives and be quick to see the ugly clouds gathering in before the rain begins to fall.

Forever there for You is a coming-of-age wakeup call for everyone to realise what is all shades of wrong in any relationship regardless of which side of the divide you are found.

Understanding human rights in Nigeria

Title:  Human Rights Litigation in Nigeria: Law, Practice and Procedure with Forms and Precedents

Author: Frank Agbedo

Reviewer: Malachy Ugwumadu

This book, written by Mr. Frank Agbedo, one of Nigeria’s leading authors in human rights literature and jurisprudence, was recently unveiled at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA) Kofo Abayomi Road, Victoria Island, Lagos, just a few years after his groundbreaking treatise on the rights of criminal suspects in Nigeria entitled Rights of Suspects and Accused Persons under the Nigerian Criminal Law.

Incidentally, only three days before the release of the current book, the world had, on 10^th December, 2016, marked the International day of Human Rights, with a strident message calling upon everyone to stand up for someone’s rights. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Lagos Branch, Human Rights Committee, organised a successful summit on Thursday 8^th December, 2016 while the National body commemorated the day with a world press conference held at the High Court of Lagos premises, Igbosere, Lagos.

It has been universally declared that “it is essential, if a man is not to be compelled to have recourse as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law” (see the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights 1948). The value of human right is solely dependent on its enforcement. An un-enforced right is of no value to its owner. Just as the maxim, Ubi Jus Ibi Remedium (where there is a right, there is a remedy) remains rhetorical until the remedy is duly enforced in favour of the victim.

This book, which is consciously and albeit rightly, in my view, dedicated to two of Nigeria’s greatest civil rights advocates, both at the bar and the bench, namely: the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAM, SAN and Hon. Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi GCON, CJN Rtd, therefore, dwells extensively on the law, practice and procedure relating to enforcement of human rights in Nigerian courts.

Principal features of the book include but are not limited to the ABC of human rights litigation, an in depth analysis of the new FREP Rules 2009, A review of judicial attitude to enforcement of Fundamental Rights Cases, Prosecuting Appeals in Fundamental Rights Cases, the status of public interest litigation in Nigerian courts, the role of Amici Curae in human rights litigation, the justiciability or judicialisation of socio-economic rights in Nigerian courts and the future of human rights litigation. The book also features a comprehensive package of practice forms and precedents relating to practical applications for enforcement of fundamental rights, as well as a comprehensive index of cases and relevant statutes.

More than seven years since the advent of the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009, which had been described as representing the widest latitude to effective enforcement of fundamental rights, the volume of litigation relating to human rights have expectedly witnessed a quantum leap in Nigerian courts. It is therefore this floodgate of litigations that supplied the raison d’etre and compelling desire for this book. This is done with a view to updating practitioners with current decisions and contemporary developments on human rights law and practice, with copious references to salutary innovations from other jurisdictions overseas.

The peculiar strength of this new book, as attested to by renowned jurists and law lords who had the benefit of a preview of the content prior to this public presentation, is that it is almost a ready answer to all issues and matters relating to preparation, initiation, filing and prosecution of fundamental right cases in Nigerian Courts. The book is comprehensive enough to the cover of the field of human right law, practice and procedure and which could be better described as a One-Stop-Shop in human rights litigation.

According to Femi Falana SAN, “Frank Agbedo Esq has, through this book, simplified and facilitated the enforcement of fundamental rights in Nigeria in line with the provisions of the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009. With the subjects analysed in the book and the relevant cases cited by the author, victims of human rights abuse will have no difficulty in seeking redress in the appropriate High Courts”.

One cannot agree any less with the above endorsement coming from a venerable icon of public interest litigation in Nigeria. The book, which focuses on the practice and procedure in human right litigation, is to the best of my well considered opinion, a well researched and comprehensive work on the subject. It is written in clear readable style that is quite informative. I believe that legal practitioners, judges, law students and any one interested in human rights litigation and issues will find it very useful. I warmly recommend it.

Malachy Ugwumadu, Esq., is the National President, Committee for

Defence of Human Rights. (GCDHR).

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By Olamide Babatunde

The previous years have been fertile for creative writing from Nigerian authors and their counterparts from Africa. Their stories and narratives have continued to win international acclaims and successfully curried more local readers. Lagos itself bore witness to this at the last 18th Lagos Book and Art Festival, which held at Freedom Park, Lagos. Book lovers from all over trooped out to participate in the five-day event. Authors bantered on old titles and charted paths to new fictions –some expected to be released in 2017.

Narrators have noted everything from the mundane, divine, ephemeral to the most chaotic in their works. Toni Kan, in his latest book, Carnivorous City, tells of Lagos as a Beast and a seductress; another says “the fellow looked as delicious as food”. These are the beautifully worded descriptions of the literary offspring who have now taken over after the likes of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka who brought fame to the African writing game.

These authors are doing the nation proud and keeping readers entertained with focus on daily living in a terrorised terrain, Post Biafra war and its attending effects, love, widening gap between the rich and the poor in a multiethnic and religious nation where the scenario is how Fela painted in his Monkey dey work, Baboon dey chop chorus and the abstract, Nigerian soups and sex penned by Yemisi Aribisala in her Memoirs.

In spite of the many challenges facing the local publishing industries with Lagos and Ibadan as the major centres, the over 100 publishing houses, including the new arrivals, have served the purpose of publishing books that are up to standard despite the unhelpful economic situation. Unable to help the situation, some Nigerian authors continue to seek foreign publishers, write for its audience and secure international attention to make profits from their books.

The challenges are numerous and, for those who have their luck stuck with creative writing, it has a lot to do with numbers and knowing what the consumers want, according to Samuel Kolawole, Managing Director, University Press. In any case, these challenges are not grave in the face of inhouse editing deficiency, a plague ravaging the industry as a whole. What any writer wants the most is to speak to readers with the least interference, without the publishers wading in. This would seem impossible. In the end, like T.S Eliot said from one of his Memos. “It is not enough to publish a good and marketable book, or even a number of them; I feel that one of the best advertisements for a publishing firm is for that firm to develop a distinct character which shall become recognized by the trade and the public.”

What has become recognisable in the services of some publishing houses is the inability to bring up to trade standard manuscripts because of lack of or inefficient editors. Editors come in at various stages of a publication process, different editors with different areas of expertise and specific roles are to work with the authors to get to the standard of the publisher. A structural editor, for instance, will reconstruct poor sentences, weak scenes, characters or situations and also go on to proofread.

It is most certain that many readers would not miss any mistake made by an author. To avoid this preventable goof, authors would be lucky to have editors and proofreaders go over their manuscripts either for minor or major alterations. What ever requirements or needs the manuscript requires, it is important that three or more readers go through the scripts to ensure it is error free.

Ibrahim Abubakar, author of Season of Crimson Blossoms and 2016 NLNG winner asserts that the Nigerian publishing industry is plagued by many challenges, and one of them is the dearth of credible and quality editors. This has forced the few functional publishing houses to outsource editing to freelance editors. Sometimes they get it right and the quality of work is outstanding. Sometimes not so. Outsourcing editing has become necessary, because the traditional publishing houses in Nigeria are mostly small business being operated by people with real passion for books; they can’t afford to employ editors on a full
time basis.

To be continued

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By HENRY AKUBUIRO

Beyond its rich history, exotic pyramids, intriguing hieroglyphics and magnificent artifacts, ancient Egypt has another unique legacy bequeathed to the world that isn’t widely known.

A new revelation emerged recently when a Nigerian researcher, Tolu Oladimeji, the author of the unpublished manuscript, “English: The Language of the gods”, intimated the press on the Egyptian connection with English language, which is fast becoming global lingua franca.

The Art graduate from the Obafemi University, Ile-Ife, following years of in-depth research, has revealed that the names of the Egyptian Pharaohs and their gods “are in English or, at worse, broken English.” Besides, his research also shows that all common ancient Egyptian words, phrases and concepts, when translated or re-pronounced, have matching English equivalents.

It is another dimension to the Egyptian corpus, a byproduct of a remarkable civilisation stemming from a period in history when most parts of the world were just tepid in institutional developments.

Citing Ahmose-Nefertari (1570-1505 BC), an Egyptian queen, whom he translated as I-Must-Never-Tarry, the researcher justified the English translation by describing her as a high achiever and somebody given to wasting little time when dealing with the affairs of state..

The name of Akhetaten, an Egyptian king who lived between 1352-1335BC, was translated to I-Can’t-Attain, a man who strove to attain spiritual reformation but failed. His alias, Ikhaton (I-Can’t-Attone), said Oladimeji, was befitting for a man whose main preoccupation was spiritual reform and the worship of his God.

Another example cited was Queen Ankhesenamun (I-Can-See-a-Man-of-Depth), alias Ankhesenpaaaten (I-Can-See-Aten). Also cited is Queen Hatshepsut (Heart-She-Shoot). Justifying the English translation of the latter, the researcher said, as the name suggests, she zeroed in on the weak spots of men, played and cashed in on her feminity in a male dominated environment and when she felt she had them where she wanted them.

While Simontu, a 12^th century male dynasty official, is translated to She-Want-To, another Egyptian queen, Smenkhkare, alias Nefertiti (Never-Ever), who lived in the thirteenth century, is translated by the Nigerian to Its-Men-Career.

In arriving at his translations, the researcher considered re-pronouncing the names in English, contextualisation for confirmation, association for interactive confirmation, cross-referencing persons/people with their history/achievements for confirmation, correlation of names aliases, grammatical transformation, etcetera.

Ever heard of Thoth? Here, the ancient Egyptian god is translated to Thought. Hykos, a term used to categorise a period when Palestine occupied ancient Egypt, is translated to High Cost (a great loss arising from the occupation). Also interesting is the translation of Osiris, an Egyptian god, to O’Series (many people). Likewise, another Egyptian god, Seth, is translated to Seethe (anger).

In his analysis, the researcher observed that ancient Egypt “appeared to have apotheosised, personified, anthromorphasised, deified and glorified everything that made sense around them: Pharoahs/Queens, Gods/Goddess and words/concepts.

For the London based researcher, understanding the ancient’s way of thinking is crucial in deciphering the cryptic messages of the papyrus texts, which explained why it took him over a decade to come out with this research.

Yoruba queen in ancient Egypt

The researcher also drew attention to a Yoruba queen Tiye (Taiye) who reigned in ancient Egypt. A picture shows her wearing a unique dress with its symbolic twin Uraei. “Before now, we [Nigerians] weren’t relevant in [ancient] history. But, I tell you that there was a Yoruba queen who was in Egypt,” he said.

His paper is a way of opening up discussion on what transpired during the ancient times. Oladimeji remarked: “This research is a game changer of our education. I don’t want to take it from a religious point of view. I don’t want to take it from a religious point of view.”

Olamide is certain, going by the outcome of his research, the oracles in Egypt used English as a means to communicate, though it was coded. He averred: “The oracles in Egypt used English as a means of communication, but it was coded.”

Though there is a core spiritual element to this issue, the researcher isn’t willing to share it for now. The product of his research isn’t in book form yet, but it is available online at www.toluoladimeji.com.

“My main aim is to make it available to everybody, especially those who can’t easily afford a book,” he said.

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